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The Inflection Point - How Long You Can Safely Avoid Automated Testing, and Why You Might Want To

About the Talk

August 11, 2012 7:00 AM

Norris Conference Center, Austin, TX

Norris Conference Center, Austin, TX

And in the late 90's, God created Test-Driven Development - and it was good... real good. It was so good that critique or questioning of it was deemed wholly unnecessary and obsolete, and was removed from the list of things permissible in polite and sensitive programmer society. And with the return of Justin Bieber hair, mustaches, and lumberjack attire to social norm, the Ruby community assumed the defacto leadership of test automation fashion design. And so, on the heals of a long, dark age... another long, dark age was born. Just like last time, and the time before, and the time before, and the time before; down through the unknowable, forgotten, ancient histories of last year's software development ideas.

While TDD adherents (myself included) would say that all code should be written with an automated test first, doing so turns a blind eye to circumstances where automated testing can be deferred without loosing any productivity, and in some cases, increasing productivity. This presentation examines the inflection point where automated testing becomes necessary and beneficial, and challenges many TDD assertions that we've maintained over the past 10+ years. And hopefully, it pokes a stick in one of the Ruby community's eyes - hopefully the one that's already blind, because two blind eyes would make Ruby hipsters completely insufferable, rather than just mostly insufferable.

Bio:

Scott Bellware is the Chief Systems Officer at Aptus Technoliges and the founder of Lean Software Austin. He is a relentless pursuer of root causes, especially those rooted in bias and delusion (often his own).